Any government that does not control its money is controlled by those who do.
Tracing to the Root
by Kevin McCormick GPTX
All I need to know I learned in kindergarten. But an essential question remains unanswered: which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did the Federal Reserve create a system of imperialist rapacious consumption or did a system of imperialist rapacious consumption create the Federal Reserve?
As with the chicken and egg, whichever came first, we have both.
In my view, so much of the discussion on social inequity and global warming identifies the harmful symptoms of our monetary system while failing to trace these symptoms back to their origin — the banking cartel and its control of money. A recent article by Gus Speth, titled Clearing skies: Opening a new path on climate and the future (also at Resilience) actually comes near to making this vital connection.
The article points out that adaptation — preparing for droughts, floods, heat waves, and sea-level rise — are not themselves a sufficient response to climate change.
Adapting to climate change does not address the societal systems and values that spawned the current crisis. What’s needed is “systemic adaptation” that fundamentally changes our economy, our politics, and our priorities in ways that put community and the planet first.
These quotes give the flavor of four fundamental reasons for the climate crisis identified by the author:
corporate-consumerist capitalism — In today’s economy, output, productivity, profits, the stock market, and consumption must all go up. … There is no deduction for climate change’s vast social and environmental costs. … Corporations have long been identified as our principal economic actors; they and their well-to-do spawn are now also our principal political actors. … There are other sociopathic features of today’s capitalism, … but the system of money and finance deserves special note.
the U.S. security state — A 2019 Brown University analysis concluded that the U.S. military was the largest institutional source of greenhouse gas emissions in the world.
a weak, flawed democratic system — The U.S. political system is corrupted by money, focused on the short time horizons of election cycles and guided by a discouraging level of public discourse on important issues like climate change.
dominant cultural values and habits of thought — Consumerism and materialism seek to meet human needs, even non-material ones, through ever-increasing purchase of goods and services. The habit of focusing on the present and discounting the future leads away from a thoughtful appraisal of long-term consequences, …
The historical origins of the Federal Reserve might trace the hand-off of empire from the Bank of England to the Federal Reserve in preparation for World War I. Perceptive observers will note the striking similarities of the two systems — the “money supply” is the sum of bank deposits created by bank loans, a bank managed payment system tracking nearly all monetary transactions through bank account transfers, government debt supporting speculative financial markets, and an aristocratic financial elite.
Directing the flow of value in everyday conditions as well as emergencies, the monetary hardwiring affects the ends in profound ways. … That circuitry defines the parameters within which decisions about ends are made. In fact, it has constricted our imaginations for decades — even as it determines patterns of growth and inequality. A particular kind of hardwiring characterizes capitalism. That system amounts to the governing (constitutive) determination that the public medium of the economy — money — should be created by banks, predominantly banks operating for private profit. The determination is strange, indeed sui generis, because governments can make money without any financial intermediary or involvement. Despite its anomalous nature, the banked design for creating the money supply has gone viral in the last three centuries. During that time, it has determined the way both private and public spending happens. (emphasis added)
Social control through a banking cartel monetary system is a centuries-long condition of our culture. It gives rise to all four of the fundamental reasons for the climate crisis identified in the Clearing Skies article. The political privilege of creating legal-tender money through loans is the basis of banking cartel power and influence, the basis of corporate power, the modern basis of empire, the basis of consumerism, and the sustainer of short-term thinking. It is the political privilege to create money that allows the banking cartel to determine who receives money and on what terms. Consumer loans are given for real estate mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, and student debt — all subject to strict legal controls over borrowers. Corporations which pollute and destroy the environment are financed by the banking cartel. Naturally, the banking cartel will issue money to its political supporters and allies — the corporations and oligarchs — and it will insure the recipients compliance with the contractual terms of loan agreements and the denial of further credit as punishment for non-compliance.
While the banking cartel may be described as sociopathic, it actually follows the logic of protecting and exploiting its political privilege to create money. The Clearing Skies author notes: “Corporations … are now also our principal political actors.” Corporations funded by the banking cartel control the media and direct public discourse. The political control is so vital to the banking cartel position that, as Christine Desan further states: “There are no work-arounds in the current system. Public spending occurs in ways that underscore the banking logic, confirm its operation, and enlarge its ambit.”
As we experience the deterioration of our environment and society we should trace these distressing trends to their underlying systemic cause: banking cartel control over the monetary system. It should be a priority of every person and organization who cares about the environment and social betterment to recognize the necessity of taking the privilege of money creation and issuance away from the banking cartel and restoring it to the public. As Herman Daly stated: “The idea is not to nationalize banks, but to nationalize money, which is a natural public utility in the first place.”
We should not submit to a status of volunteers for the public good struggling against a well-paid mercenary army of corporate agents for the banking cartel. We change that situation by challenging the banking cartel and denying them the privilege of money creation — taking and using that privilege (actually a sovereign prerogative) with public money for the public good. In this way we gain the ability to reward and sustain progress towards systemic adaptation to the warming climate within a humane society.
Napoleon Bonaparte (Source: Britannica)
Napoleon Was Right About the Issuance of Debt Money
by Rita Jacobs GPMI
Do you wonder why nothing gets done to alleviate the social problems in this country? We see constant increases in homelessness, poverty, student debt, household debt, food insecurity, government debt, bankruptcy, incarceration, the lack of adequate health insurance, and unaffordable education. The government is more interested in censoring any criticism of its policies than it is in alleviating any of the suffering by the population. Meanwhile it spends much of its annual budget on funding forever wars, fighting a never-ending battle against terrorism. Wealth inequality has reached its highest peak in the history of our country.
The U.S. failed to heed this warning by Napoleon:
Terrorism, War and Bankruptcy are caused by the privatization of money, issued as a debt and compounded by interest. When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes.
Our government made itself dependent on bankers for the issuance of its money when it enacted the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. The only way that new money comes into existence occurs when debt is created. The banks are allowed to create money when making loans, and also to purchase government bonds (which are instruments of debt owed by the government to the holder of the bond). These debts create obligations to pay interest, thereby compounding the debt. This allows the banks to collect interest on all the money in circulation, a special privilege associated with their power to create money. It also allows them to acquire property used as collateral for loans that are in default. Eventually this system allows the bankers to become very wealthy. Control of the money is a great source of power.
So who is in control? The wealthy bankers control the largest corporations by investing in their stock and having bankers serve as directors on their boards. They also select where they make their loans. This allows them to control the corporations and also shape public policy. Their usual goal is maximum profit without any regard for the plight of the corporations’ employees. By spending money on political contributions, they are able to select the representatives in government. By lobbying the legislators, they are able to shape public policy and have legislation enacted that is beneficial for their profits.
Britannica defines terrorism as “the calculated use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective.” In its discussion it points out that terrorism can be carried out by state institutions such as armies, intelligence services, and police. We are all aware by now that the CIA has used terrorist activities to overthrow governments in many foreign countries. And citizens in some of those countries have retaliated with terrorist attacks against the U.S. The police have been militarized to the extent they are waging war on citizens.
Bankruptcies have grown dramatically since 1980. “Between 1980 and 2004, bankruptcies [per capita] grew at an annual average rate of 7.6 percent a year. As of 2004, the filing rate was … more than four times the 1980 rate and nearly 80 times the 1920 rate.” The national debt of the U.S. is now at $34 trillion, and the annual interest is almost as much as the military budget. The government has no plan to deal with the interest except to borrow more money. This is not sustainable. Our government cannot go bankrupt, but investors are losing confidence in the U.S. dollars, and countries are starting to trade in other countries’ currencies and abandoning dependence on the U.S. dollar. The present state of affairs in the country can result in serious consequences for our economy. A change in the monetary system has become imminently necessary.
Bonaparte had it right.
Crashing the Economy
Economists can’t see it, they think it’s doing great.
by Howard Switzer GPTN
Economists are having a hard time understanding why when they say the economy is doing great that most people don’t believe them. Economist ≡ an out of touch person who studies wealth while ignoring power. Americans aren't stupid, they see that the gains don't keep up with the loses, they know the economy is built on a giant unstable pile of unpayable debt. Sure, the economy is doing great, even the homeless are working.
When all money is created as interest-bearing debt recession/depression is built into the system, note the gray bands in the FRED's graphs, the system crashes every 10 years or so. It used to be more often. When loan payments (money destroyed) exceed loans being made (money created) the system crashes. Those who own the system don't mind because when that happens, they can pick up the collateral on the defaulting loans for pennies on the dollar. The monetary system is a usurious scam owned by those dictating our public policy and the destruction of the world.
The unelected financial leaders of the world, those who control the creation and allocation of money as interest-bearing debt, have driven the economy off the cliff. The only reason we’ve not yet realized this is because it is apparently a very long way down. Are we floating or falling? The blast of hot air blowing up past us should be a hint. We are told the economy is doing great now, never mind the growing homeless population. I could be wrong, perhaps we will sprout wings and soar to new heights. If so, looking at this graph, we better start flapping.
This graph is about the Fed remittances that are returned to the government after their expenses have been deducted. Those of us who have expressed concerns about the growing interest payments on the Federal Debt are often told not to worry about that because the Fed returns it to the government. Annualized interest expense on US debt is now at $1.027 trillion and is quickly rising. Just 2 years ago, annual interest expense on US debt was at $450 billion. That's a 128% jump in interest expense and we didn't even enter a recession yet. Since 2020, total US debt is up $10 trillion and set to hit $35 trillion in 2024. That's a 45% jump in US debt and the Fed is still saying it will be a "soft landing." However, I think most people understand that when you fall from a great height a soft landing is unlikely.
Something is not adding up here.
The Reserve Banks reported cost of operations are in excess of their earnings! How on earth could that be? They should fire all their high paid people and close their doors, we don’t need the Fed, we need a government that takes its responsibility to the people seriously.
US Dollar purchasing power is at an all-time low, it’s been going down ever since 1913 when the private debt-money system was made the official US system. It may be that none of the economist’s tools are adequate for learning anything about how the economy works because they aren't taught anything about money.
Its not that a soft landing is impossible, its just that with the current system that can never happen. The world debt now is $305 trillion while there is only $82 trillion in the entire world money supply. However, we can construct the “wings” to get us out of this mess if it were not for the power elite jealously guarding this social power that rightfully belongs to the people’s elected government. Most of the money they create goes into unproductive speculation, making money off money, producing nothing of value. The legislation required to change the system was written and introduced to Congress in 2011 but was never allowed to be voted on. The Constitution gives Congress the power to create the money, not to a wealthy private banking cabal and yet Congress has never been allowed to create any money except when Lincoln did it and then it was only $450 million. The government prints the paper currency and mints the coins, but they are all sold the banks to service their customers cash needs.
Just to give you some idea of what could be expected by changing the system, that $450 million in debt-free greenbacks spent into the economy saw debt begin to disappear. interest rates went down, and people felt freer due to the lack of debt. The bankers hated that and did everything they could to quash the use of greenbacks but they persisted for some time due to their popularity.
The dilapidated 400 year old monetary system run by the wealthiest families is showing signs structural fatigue and needs to be replaced. The power elite want to replace it with something that will further enhance their control over everything, not to fix the problems with our economy. Their economists don’t see the problems with our economy, they don’t have economic problems, they don’t understand why anyone does.
Agent Smith from The Matrix
How to Escape the Matrix
Tips for recognizing false or probably false representations of what is going on.
by guest author John Leake
This morning a friend sent me a link to a long essay about our U.S. government’s ever-blundering Middle East policy, which included a citation of a 2019 Jerusalem Post report headlined: Netanyahu: Money to Hamas part of strategy to keep Palestinians divided. The report explains Netanyahu’s policy of supervising the transfer of funds from Qatar to Hamas:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended Israel’s regular allowing of Qatari funds to be transferred into Gaza, saying it is part of a broader strategy to keep Hamas and the Palestinian Authority separate, a source in Monday’s Likud faction meeting said. …
The Jerusalem Post piece reminded me that within Israel, criticism and debate about government policy is the norm. This contrasts with the public forum in the United States, in which criticizing Israeli government policy is usually excoriated as being “antisemitic.” The report further states:
Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman, who resigned as head of the Defense Ministry over Gaza policies, said on Saturday that the payments are a “miserable decision,” marking “the first time Israel is funding terrorism against itself.”
Though I can’t be sure of the veracity of the Jerusalem Post report, it strikes me as credible. Upon reading it, I immediately thought of all the vehement assertions I’ve heard in recent months about perfidious Iran providing financial support for Hamas. So, what am I to make of this 2019 Jerusalem Post report that not Iran, but Qatar is a major funder of Hamas, with Israel supervising the flow of funds into Gaza?
Since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, I’ve been in the habit of investigating major domestic and foreign policy stories, and I’ve noticed a conspicuous pattern—namely, the U.S. government and our mainstream media constantly lie about everything.
This brings me to the title of this post: How to Escape the Matrix. To do so, you must start with the following advice offered by the head of a mental health hospital in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether:”
“You are young yet, my friend,” replied my host, “but the time will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.”
Upon reading this, the reader will doubtless object that if he is to believe nothing he hears, he might as well just give up trying to understand anything about what is going on the world. I sympathize with this frustration, and I therefore propose this posture of extreme skepticism as a starting point. From this initial posture of skepticism, one may venture forth with an inquiry guided by the following practical tips.
TIP 1:Ask yourself what major interest group may be propagating the narrative. Anytime we are told something of great import by our government and MSM, one should consider if the representation pertains to a decision that will result in:
A transfer of large sums of public money.
The use of military force.
The exertion of emergency or other extraordinary power.
A substantial benefit or advantage for political, financial, or industrial interests.
If any of the above is at play, it’s likely that what we are being told is NOT the objective truth of the matter, but a biased or distorted account that serves a powerful lobby or interest group.
TIP 2:Bear in mind that both political parties in the United States have been captured by interest groups. While the Democratic Party is more vulnerable to the influence of criminally insane interest groups, the Republicans in Washington rarely if ever take a principled stand for the citizenry. For example, with the exception of Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, Republican Senators went along lockstep with the suppression of early treatment for COVID-19.
TIP 3: Review the statements and publications by key players in any major interest group. This is especially useful in stories concerning the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex. Congress produces endless Kabuki Theater about gain-of-function work on bat coronaviruses that could have ultimately produced SARS-CoV-2. Senator Rand has repeatedly grilled Fauci about his NIH grants for such research, and Fauci has boldly lied about it.
At the same time, Congress NEVER subpoenas Professor Ralph Baric at UNC Chapel Hill. To understand the truth of the matter, one need only read the 2015 paper titled A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence by Veneet Menachery, Zhengli-Li Shi, Ralph Baric, et al. This study plainly states that the authors conducted Gain-of-Function research on bat coronaviruses in order to make them infectious to primary human airway epithelial cells and succeeded in their endeavor.
Likewise, Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, and the World Economic Forum often tell the world about their schemes. For almost fifteen years, Bill Gates repeatedly stated his ambition to vaccinate all of humanity as frequently as possible. In 2010 he declared, “We must make this the decade of vaccines.” To pursue this objective, his foundation collaborated with the WHO, UNICEF, and NIAID “to increase coordination across the international vaccine community and create a Global Vaccine Action Plan.” Nine years later—at the January 2019 WEF meeting in Davos—he announced his foundation’s return on the $10 billion it had invested in vaccine development.
“We feel there’s been over a 20-to-1 return, yielding $200 billion over those 20 or so years,” he told CNBC’s Betty Quick on Squawk Box. This was, as he’d written in an essay for the Wall Street Journal the week before, “The Best Investment I’ve Ever Made.”
In other words, Bill Gates is obsessed with vaccines, wants everyone to get them, and has made $200 billion on his $10 billion investment in mass vaccination. The Gates Foundation also wields vast influence in the mass media. On August 21, 2020, the Columbia Journalism Review published long, meticulous report titled “Journalism’s Gates keepers.” The reporter, Tim Schwab, found $250 million of Gates Foundation grants to radio and television newsrooms (including $17.5 million to NPR alone) newspapers, journalism organizations, and advertising firms that create content.
The Foundation has also given grants to the Poynter Institute and Gannett, whose PolitFact and USA Today fact-checking departments have defended Gates from what they characterize as “false conspiracy theories” and “misinformation” about his influence over public health policy. As the author pointed out, “The full scope of Gates’s giving to the news media remains unknown because the foundation only publicly discloses money awarded through charitable grants, not through contracts.”
Consider this whenever you hear politicians, journalists, and academics insisting that ALL vaccines are “safe and effective.”
TIP 4:Consider that major government actions, including aid packages and bailouts, are invariably for the benefit of specific industries, interest groups, and preferred foreign countries. Whenever we are being blitzed with claims that a crisis is afoot, there are invariably interest groups that are already positioned to benefit from the crisis.
TIP 5:Get rid of your television. This is especially important if you have kids. Though estimates vary, it seems that the average American adult watches about 3 hours per day. Watching TV draws one’s mind ever deeper into the Matrix. Though I’ve wasted my own share of time, I’m proud to say that I haven’t watched television in 35 years. Much of the 38,000 hours I could have spent watching television I have spent reading or conversing with friends.
TIP 6:Do not trust stories that are being presented to you on your social media feeds unless you have already thoroughly vetted the sources. Social media algorithms quickly ascertain your biases and ruthlessly reinforce them by presenting you with more of the same kind of reporting.
TIP 7:Beware of the propaganda technique known as “flooding the zone.” On the evening of September 7, 2021 Late-Night comedy hosts Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers all joked about America’s multitude of rubes taking “horse dewormer” instead of getting vaccinated. Mr. Kimmel’s remarks were the most cutting.
We’ve still got a lot of pan-dimwits out there. People are still taking this ivermectin. You know the poison control centers have seen this spike in calls from people taking this livestock medicine to fight the coronavirus. But they won’t take the vaccine, which is crazy. … Dr. Fauci has said that if the hospitals get any more overcrowded, they’re going to have to make some very tough choices about who gets an ICU bed. That choice doesn’t seem so tough to me. Vaccinated person having a heart attack, yes, come right on in, we’ll take care of you. Unvaccinated person who gobbled horse goo, rest in peace, wheezy.
This well-known propaganda technique, called “flooding” or “firehosing,” broadcasts the same message repetitively and simultaneously over multiple media channels. The Johns Hopkins pandemic simulation, Event 201, featured a conversation about this strategy. Planning board member Matthew Harrington, CEO of Edelman global communications, proclaimed:
We’re at a moment where the social media platforms have to step forward and recognize and to assert that their [claim] to be a technology platform and not a broadcaster is over. They in fact have to be a participant in broadcasting accurate information and partnering with the scientific and health communities to counterweight if not flood the zone of accurate information.
Whenever you see a blitz of messaging about something, you can be sure that a major, organized interest group is trying (and usually succeeding) in exerting the vast power of the Matrix.
Hampton Institute
The Global Crisis is Capitalism
by Howard Switzer GPTN
Reviewing a Review Essay by Kim Scipes of Adam Aron’s book The Climate Crisis: Science, Impacts, Policy, Psychology, Justice, Social Movements
A friend turned me on to Green Social Thought the other day, so I went to check it out. Color me delighted to find a publication dedicated to reading, thinking, and writing about capitalism’s threat to life on this planet, and articulating solutions. While I have subscribed and intend to explore all the thinking therein, I didn’t get past the lead article which caught my attention and inspired me to write this essay.
It is an excellent review essay of Adam Aron’s book along with a thoughtful critique by Kim Scipes which I want to expand on from my viewpoint which hopefully will help fill out a realistic perspective.
Kim points out that Aron notes that the key driver of the climate crisis is capitalism but that “he didn’t go far enough.” I agree. Aron quotes Brian Tokar saying the problem of the climate crisis “is not a technical problem to be ‘solved’, but rather a systemic problem, rooted deeply in social and economic structures.”
I think there are real technical issues, but they are relatively easy to solve once the systemic issue is resolved. It is the systemic issue I am focused on and will show how Capitalism drives the climate issue as well as nearly every other issue confounding humankind.
An economy is a system for the exchange of goods and services, which all come from the planet’s ecosystem, facilitated by a money system. While it has been firmly established that our economy is a subset of the environment, many economists still see the environment as a subset of the economy. As strange as it sounds, economists are not taught about how the monetary system works which is key to understanding how the economy works. As John Kenneth Galbraith wrote,
“The problem of the modern economy is not a failure of a knowledge of economics; it's a failure of a knowledge of history. Do not be alarmed by simplification, complexity is often a device for claiming sophistication, or for evading simple truths. There can be few fields of human endeavor in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance. The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it."
The Riksbank “Nobel” Prize for Economics was awarded in 2022 to three economists who claimed banks lent out deposits despite all evidence to the contrary in the real world. Banks create deposits electronically when they make loans — simply typing numbers into the ledger. Thus, they create the money supply, a US government prerogative they usurped in 1913. One year earlier the Pujo Committee investigation into the ‘Money Trust’ proved that the big banks, dominated by J.P. Morgan Co., controlled every industry in the nation through interlocking directorates. They used backroom deals to get their central bank passed. Today JPM controls the main Federal Reserve Bank, the New York Fed. However, while the government could create money directly for the public need, the banks create it as debt for profit. Since that information is available to anyone looking into the monetary system and confirmed by bankers themselves, one can only assume those economists were repeating the classic, and debunked, economic catechism to misinform. Most economists are academics at bank funded universities and are defenders of the status quo as is the media. Karl Marx wrote, “Money plays the largest part in determining the course of history.” This being the case one wonders why the rich monetary history of how money is created is not taught in any school at any level, leaving it in the realm of independent research. What is it they don’t want us to know?
What is Capitalism?
The widely accepted definition of capitalism is that it is “an economic system in which the means of production is privately owned.” For some perhaps business owners are at the top of the heap and there is some truth in that of course but nearly all businesses in this system are servicing debt, corporate debt is at a record high. Corporations are pretty much profit generators for the banks as they pay the interest on their massive debts. Bankers sit on their boards. Some will say capitalism is just the system of production, but this does not explain the awesome power of the capitalist system, so I define it differently. When a business wants “capital” they are talking about money thus:
Capitalism = (capital = money) + (ism = system) = money system. The central feature and source of awesome power for the capitalists is their debt based private global monetary system issuing all money as interest-bearing debt and determining to whom and for what it will be allocated.
Capitalism emerged with the debt money system clinched in its fist, having already usurped the monetary sovereignty of Europe. The debt-money system is a weapon when needed and is a parasite on the back of free enterprise, the two are often and wrongly conflated. Every household, business and government in this world is in debt to and dependent on the banking system. Research by Margrit Kennedy revealed that 40-50% of the price of most of the goods and services we buy is interest going to the banks incurred in the process from raw materials to the retail market. Capitalism, the money system, is an extractive system, extracting the wealth of the Earth as well as most of the wealth created by our labor.
Nations need to reclaim their sovereign right to issue money debt-free to their people, the most vital prerogative of democratic self-governance, and reclaim their resources for the general welfare of their people. As the 2014 Princeton study revealed, we live in an oligarchy, ruled by a wealthy power elite. From 2009 to 2014, the 200 most politically active companies in the U.S. spent $5.8 billion influencing our government with lobbying and campaign contributions. Those same companies got $4.4 trillion in taxpayer support – a 758% return on their investment! In fact, the banks learned long ago, as far back as the 1600s, that by far their most profitable investments were in governments. Using war debt, the banks gradually got governments to give them control of their monetary systems, giving up their sovereignty. They set up a central bank for each country for management purposes. The wars are indeed all banker’s wars and have been for a long time. When you control a government you can send it to war, very profitable for the banks, especially if you profit from funding both sides. There is only one global finance system. Countries trying to go their own way are targeted as enemies. We make war on nations like Iraq, Venezuela, Syria, Libya, and others who tried to utilize their natural resources for the benefit of their own people. The BRICS nations seeking to use their own national currencies in trade are challenging that system.
The monetary system is controlled at the top by the big banks who monopolize the banking industry. If you follow the network of ownership, you find that BlackRock/Vanguard own all the major corporations including the big banks. BlackRock owns controlling interest in more than 2300 corporations, but Vanguard owns controlling interest in BlackRock. While BlackRock is a publicly traded company no outside owners control Vanguard. Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock has been giving orders to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell since September of 2019. Money is power, as Harvard Law’s Christine Desan says, “money is the governing factor.” Money is the governing factor because money is power. As director Chan of the WHO recently admitted, “those who fund the WHO decide what it will do.“ This is true of nearly every corporation, government, and institution in the world. As the Princeton Study showed, money is the primary influence and while it should be obvious that those who control the creation and allocation of the money, as Henry Kissinger said, “control everything”, it apparently is not for if it were broadly understood I think it would be the focus of our political activism. Any government that does not control the money is controlled by those who do, so we need a new government like the German farmers have been demanding for the past week.
Empire
Kim writes: “Aron makes the same mistake that many leftists today make, they do not recognize that the United States of America is the homeland of the US Empire, the greatest, strongest, and most destructive empire (to date) that the world has ever seen.”
As world events have unfolded, I’ve begun to see the US Empire as the thug enforcer for international capital, its dog on a chain to help control world events. I was surprised to read that “most leftists would not recognize the US as the latest global empire” with 800 military bases world-around and most of the discretionary budget going to the military. To maintain support for this empire, the media never mentions it but being largely influenced by the national intelligence community serving the military industrial complex it broadcasts a steady flow of state propaganda, picking up where the schools leave off.
Through a series of media manipulations, the Empire has many people believing that fighting Trump, a populist, is fighting fascism when they are actually going along with fascism, the corporate/government combine that manages the dominant narrative, the money and almost everything else. The same people that came up with Full Spectrum Domination. They intend to keep him and other challengers off the ballot. Fascism is much more sophisticated today but not invincible. We must be aware of how and why a totalitarian mass formation occurs and how best to resist it.
Kim writes: “However, an Empire cannot depend solely on its economic and military power alone; it must gain acquiescence if not active support from its ‘home’ population; after all, this home population is where it has got to obtain ‘soldiers,’ the cannon fodder, for the imperial armies.”
The Empire is the manifestation of the centralized private monopoly control of the creation of money. It is dedicated to maximizing profits and control of all industry, (see diagram) governments, militaries, intelligence agencies, schooling and the mass media. Those who control the creation of money control public policy thus making this power a public utility is the key leverage point for changing the system and implementing beneficial public policy such as getting millions of farmers back on the land to grow soil, food, fiber and forests. To be clear, this private control of money is linked with the war machine. The intelligence agencies, the militaries globally would not be able to function as they are if they weren't linked to this money creation power.
Monetary Solutions
Who creates and allocates the money has been an issue for centuries, it is what the American and French revolutions were about, it is what the civil war was about, it is what the populist movements of the late 19th century were all about, it is what the Great Depression was about. At every point there were monetary proposals to make the system a public utility. A Congress corrupted by money has stood in the way. Most recently in 2011, legislation to do this was introduced by Dennis Kucinich as the NEED Act. As Dennis told Congress, “We cannot serve the needs of the American people until we do this.” Apparently, Congress was more concerned about serving their donors, first and foremost, and then themselves through insider trading.
In 2002 Stephen Zarlenga published a landmark monetary history book, The Lost Science of Money: The Mythology of Money and The Story of Power. It was the result of 11 years of research which revealed that money was more about power than it was about economics and reinvigorated interest in monetary reform world-around realizing that money was the governing factor. He co-founded the American Monetary Institute (AMI) which holds an annual International Monetary Reform Conference in Chicago. Soon monetary reform groups were popping up in some 30 countries who came together to form The International Movement for Monetary Reform (IMMR) recognizing that it was a global issue. AMI and the Alliance for Just Money are the American affiliates. In 2008 a monetary reform plank for the Green Party Platform was proposed and Greening the Dollar became part of the platform in 2010 based on the NEED Act legislation. The Green Party is the only political party with this historically proven, constitutionally aligned, and revolutionary proposal in its platform which would change power relations word-around. I think this is the first step in decentralization and will allow further steps to decentralize.
Money is a powerful medium that has both a conscious and an unconscious influence on human behavior. Currently the monetary system is based on the ancient sin of sins, usury, the abuse of monetary authority for personal gain, greed. The maximum profit at all costs model is destroying both the physical and the psychological world. Dante Alighieri characterized it as “the anti-art, an extraordinarily efficient form of violence by which one does the most damage with the least effort.” Simply changing the system from private debt for-profit to a public utility dedicated to public care issuing asset money we will reverse both the physical and psychological consequences of the money system and empower us to do more.
The debt- money system also causes short-term thinking due to the dynamics of net present value which can be reversed with a locally issued demurrage currency. The most successful currency in history was just such a currency, issued in the depths of the Great Depression in Wörgl, Austria, a town of 4500, where $2.5 million in public works were accomplished in 15 months while issuing only $6000. The demurrage is like a parking fee which caused the money to circulate at a high velocity. As people saw the benefits of their local taxes coming back to them so quickly, they started paying their taxes in advance. The town had also shifted from short-term thinking to long-term thinking and began building for the future. This was not the only example of this happening, but it was the most recent and was done at a local level. Those who controlled the creation of the nation’s money, the privately controlled central bank, had the government ban the practice despite thousands of towns world-around wanting to copy the system. Some towns in Germany had and the banning of the currencies by their central banks is regarded as one reason the Germans got so angry that they elected Hitler.
Conclusions
Kim writes:
Altogether, he (Aron) concludes his book with three “conclusions”:
that international agreements will not be made workable until they have succeeded at the national level;
that to avoid catastrophe, fossil fuels must be left in the ground; and
that the key to widespread public support can only be won when individuals and collective efforts join together create active grassroots mobilization.
Number one is so because nations will have to reclaim their monetary sovereignty and reclaim control of their natural resources for the common benefit of their own people and place in order to address the many issues they face.
Number two is so but I think fossil fuels may have to be nationalized and redirected toward establishing systems that will not need them as we phase them out. We saw water and air clean up fast during the lockdown and I think we need a plan a way to keep people at home and in local community as much as possible and use super-efficient mass transportation systems for freight and travel. Once there is democratic control of money creation, enforcing the parity pricing law already on the books could make land affordable and small farms profitable again. This could get millions of farmers back on the land growing soil, food, fiber, and trees, creating thousands of rural economies. Remarkably it would allow the entire economy to function without debt as it did between 1942 and 1952. It would allow an economic transition away from hydrocarbons to carbohydrates.
Number three is essential along with making sure that the people understand what critical system changes are necessary to create a real democracy and protect it.
As Kim writes:
…people have to get mobilized and organize themselves to force governmental officials to do the right thing when they are deciding these issues; without this grassroots mobilization, it is unlikely that the government will take necessary action.
I expect out of necessity, the groups working on all the issues will eventually coalesce into the largest citizen mobilization in US history to elect a new Congress. It would be a kind of apocalypse, the “lifting of the veil” on the crimes of the elite ending their world to make way for the new to emerge, a fundamental change from a system that is over 400 years old. We will need to change the money, then we’ll need to change how we do almost everything to create a world of care for the Earth Mother and all her relations.
The Most Important History is the History We Don't Know
by Howard Switzer
Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804)
Alexander Hamilton had argued against including in the Constitution that the government could issue paper money, which had brought prosperity to the colonies and funded the revolution that allowed them to be making a constitution. He wrote:
To emit an unfunded paper as the sign of value ought not to constitute a formal part of the Constitution, nor even hereafter to be employed; being, in its nature, pregnant with abuses, and liable to be made the engine of imposition and fraud; holding out temptations equally pernicious to the integrity of government and to the morals of the people.
Hamilton as the first Secretary of the Treasury favored the privately controlled Bank of England model believing it would turn the US into an industrial empire. Indeed, it has as well as being made an unprecedented “engine of imposition and fraud; holding out temptations equally pernicious to the integrity of government and to the morals of the people.”
Our current monetary system is institutionalized usury.
Usury:
The abuse of monetary authority for personal gain.
The great religions and philosophers condemned usury.
Dante described it as
An extraordinarily efficient form of violence by which one does the most damage with the least amount of effort.
